LogThe Mouldering World-Jason-2

Game log for the 2014/05/04 session of The Mouldering World, as taken by Jason

Philotic's in Clydesdale, purely by coincidence, and runs into Burnt Amber there. He's been spelunking, she's been bodyguarding, now they're both enjoying the marketplace. Phil opens his mind to the psychic maelstrom to see what might be interesting around here. He sees a vision of the same place in a different time, which in this case is a shed containing a giant locomotive, with people standing around talking, and hears one of them say, "The beauty of it is, this thing is like a tank. Once we finish it, we can roll in there and take everything, and there's nothing they can do about it." That bodes ill for this plan to open a railroad line to Binghamton. Phil decides to go toward the shed and check it out.

The shed has no street-level windows and the doors are shut. There are guards around it. Phil asks the guards what's in the shed, but the guards are not friendly, and suggest he should move on. Amber assures him that she's been there and knows what's in the shed already. They walk away and Amber explains that both Bingham and Buzz would like to open the rsilroad for trade, but Bingham is always short of labor, and it takes labor to get the railroad open again, so it may be hard to make a deal.

Meanwhile, back at the Binghamton hospital, Bank turns to try to coordinate tactics with Fluffy and realizes that she's bugged out on him. Given that he's shot full of holes, this bodes ill for his future prospects.

Ghislaine hears the firing near her shop and goes to investigate, Wild Bob in tow. She passes Fluffy on the way to the fight and tries to ask what's going on, but Fluffy doesn't even acknowledge her as she goes by. Ghislaine keeps heading toward the sound of the shooting.

Bank continues to trade fire with Ward's bandits and manages to kill another, which causes the remaining two to give up and pull out. As they retreat from Bank's position, they encounter Ghislaine, who recognizes T-Bone and Walter. She lowers her gun and calls out, "What's going on?" They reply with mention of the riot in Creeptown, but then Bank yells that they were trying to rob the hospital. Ghislaine and Wild Bob help Bank get to the hospital. Booboo comes to the door and insists that they disarm before they enter. They do and Booboo gets to work treating Bank. His injuries are... many, snd hurty, but Bank's tough enough to take it. They give him peyote, on the theory that it might help dull the pain, and the resulting trip convinces Bank that Wendy-Matt's host is haunting Bank's Place, and that Walter is going to try to kill him. The second is something Bank could have figured out without the drugs.

In Clydesdale, Amber and Phil trade notes, and then notice that one of the guards from the shed is following them. They decide to split up and meet back later at the statue of some woman dressed as a nurse cradling some soldier dude. The guy follows Amber, who easily eludes him, because she's the coolest woman alive. Amber then gets behind the guy and starts following him.

Phil goes shopping. He finds an old, still in box, build-it-yourself transistor radio kit and realizes he has to have it. He creates a distraction and filches the object of his desire, then goes to meet Amber at the statue. He sees the guard trying to follow him, heads toward the guy, and acknowledges him as they pass buy one another. The guy warns him off the train. They go in different directions, but then after a few minutes, the guard starts following him again. Phil decides to accept being followed and goes back to the appointed meeting spot with Amber, but on the way, he can't help trying to have a trade/swap meet with the guard, who offers up an asthma inhaler. They agree that the guard, who is named Burt, will trade the inhaler for a matched set of boot laces.

After they split up, Phil ambles around town a bit, and suddenly bumps into Jackson Twain, who says, "You have something that belongs to me," and throws a punch. Phil tries to leap at him but instead manages to successfully put his face right in front of Twain's punch. Phil accepts some punishment and ends up in an arm bar just for the chance to pick Train's pocket. He gets his hand on something that feels like a garage door opener. Meanwhile, Train rifles his pockets. Phil can't quite manage to get the opener into his own pocket without Twain noticing, and ends up losing hold of it. Meanwhile Twain demands to know where "the watch" is, and they argue as to whether it's still his since Phil stole it fair and square. Phil offers to trade the watch for Twain's reading glasses, including their hard case. Twain agrees so long as Phil takes him to where the watch is. Phil leads him around but has trouble getting the watch out of the hoard, which causes a little bit of strife. Eventually they make the trade. Twain tells Phil that next time Twain comes for the watch, Phil shouldn't make him work so hard to get it back. They exchange unpleasantries and then Twain leaves. Phil tries to follow him but Twain rapidly pulls away from him, via means Phil can't quite track. Phil tries to open his mind to the psychic maelstrom to see how he's doing it, but instead, he gets a very clear vision of another time, from which he can't seem to snap out. In fact, he seems to have accidentally gone to a different place and time.

In this other place and time, Phil has a gunshot wound, bandaged but not not healed. Amber comes running up to him and asks, "Did you catch him?"

You are not expected to understand this.

Amber's just been cruising along, and when she goes back to duty with Bingham, she finds out that there's been an attempt on Buzz's life, which failed, and the attacker has evaded pursuit. She's asked to join the hunt, looking for a man with a shaved head and an eyepatch. Phil, who was with her, gets separated from her for a minute, and she finds him sitting on the ground. She asks, "Did you catch him?"

Phil has lost four days, apparently, and admits that Jackson Twain is just too weird for him. He quickly checks his hoard and finds nothing missing.

Amber's just about to take a real interest in Phil's problems when she sees the guy with the shaved head dart across the alley. They give chase. Phil spots just a hint of movement off to the side, ducks, and thus allows Amber to catch the full brunt of the shotgun blast, which knocks her down. Phil tries to punch the shooter but gets shot for his pains, and he too goes down. Amber rolls over and shoots across Phil, winging the shooter and knocking the shotgun enough that Phil doesn't take any damage. One shotgun pellet does hit Amber's hand, though, and she looses her grip on her 9mm. Phil moves behind a cart and begins searching it for good stuff. The shooter retreats and reloads. Amber grabs her staff and dives right through one of the stalls, trying to set up for an ambush when he pops out again. She's trying to figure out how she can sneak up on him and bop him with the staff when she hears the reloading noises stop and the running noises start. She's lost sight of him. She grabs her pistol from the ground and tries to figure out where he went.

He's about three stalls up and a row over. Amber gets a running start, slides over the wall of the stall on her hip, spinning as she does so, and unloads her pistol on an extremely surprised assassin. The impact staggers him and he stops running, leaving them face to face at close quarters.

Phil's been a little out of the action, between his wound and Amber's sudden burst of speed, and decides to sit and call for help.

Amber tries to duck out of the stall and behind the wall where the shooter was, but he's not there anymore, so neither one of them is sure where the other is. She hears scrabbling sounds and realizes that he's ducked under an old food truck. She throws a bit of debris and throws it, and the guy fires at the noise. That gives Amber a chance to drop to the ground and fire at him, but he's already climbing into the food truck. Amber goes to help Phil out, allowing the shooter to get away.

Bank's been treated and is almost ready to leave when Parsons shows up. The riot is under control but Creeptown burned, meaning all the creepers are in the Gulag now. They made a run on the wall, causing a lot of chaos, and seemed suspiciously well organized and armed. Armed is bad, since the creepers aren't allowed to have guns. They exchange notes and agree that in exchange for Parsons' protection on Bank's Place and its staff, and word getting out that Bank is healing up in the hospital under heavy guard, Bank will get Fluffy and/or Jonjo to take him to Clydesdale and inform Bingham that he's needed back home.